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| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
As to voting, I say use it or lose it. Vote or lose citizenship.
I like Australia's system of compulsory voting actually. |
I dont agree with this. Consider this
People are different. People have different interests. Some are interested in politics and make a concerted effort to follow the issues. These people think about, evalutate and understand the implications of thier votes. But, of course, not everyone is like this. This is especially true, more and more, in developed countries where voting differences have little impact on peoples day to day lives. Forcing people to vote isnt going to make them interested and able to make an educated decision. So I ask whats better for a country: Having few politically educated people voting, or diluting those educated voting power by forcing non interested, non motivated voters to choose.
One of the problems with democracy is that non politically educated voters seem to be far more swayed by emotion and less willing to appeal to reason and search for accurate information. There are countless examples throughout history but the best one that comes to mind right now is south america. I am living in Chile right now and I have travelled through some very politically unstable countries. I just passed through Bolivia where there is a referendum to completely nationalize the country's natural resource industries stop exporting their resources. (this is what people have explained to me anyway). The country has been fucked around alot and the people have a legitimate reason to be pissed off. If passed, the vote (whether right or wrong) would likely shatter the delicate economy and ruin whatever progress they have gained in the past 15 years. But the vote is extremely popular with many in the lower class because its being pushed by unions and interest groups using fear and anger as an extremly powerful weapon. Whether you agree with the vote or not Knee-jerk reactions like this fueled by emotional campaigns are extremely detrimental to developing country's growth. The decisions needed for improvement almost never have immediate results and if politicians are getting kicked out every two years there's no way they are going to be motivated to make the proper decisions.
Democracy isnt perfect. People are human and make bad choices. It makes a politicians job much harder to sell to a hundred thousand educated when they know and understand the facts than 5 million who are swayed by platitudes and unreasonable promises. Forcing people who have no interest to make a choice doesnt do anyone any good. Ideally everyone would look into the issues and make an educated vote. But thats not going to happen. If you dont know who you are voting for and why you are voting, dont vote. It only hurts the country.
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Nathan Fake - Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani Remix) 
